프랜차이즈 업종별 분쟁에 관한 탐색적 연구: 분쟁 조정 의결서 대상 토픽모델링 분석을 중심으로

This study aims to identify the structural characteristics of conflicts and suggest policy improvements by comparing and analyzing franchise dispute cases across three major industries: food service, retail, and service sectors. To this end, we collected dispute resolution decisions disclosed by the Korea Fair Trade Commission over the past 30 years (1996–2024) and applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling and keyword co-occurrence network analysis to uncover the key issues in each industry. The analysis revealed that disputes in the food service sector were largely driven by information asymmetry and unfair contract terms, particularly involving contract termination and franchise fee refunds. In the retail sector, disputes stemmed from the franchisor’s unilateral enforcement of operational standards (e.g., business hours) and insufficient disclosure of expected sales, reflecting the industry's high dependency on location-specific demand. In the service sector, conflicts were mainly attributed to discrepancies in the interpretation of standardized operational regulations proposed by franchisors. The structure of disputes was closely linked to the operational characteristics of each industry. Network centrality analysis further indicated that franchisor-centered governance and inconsistencies in information disclosure were the most critical sources of conflict across all sectors. This study highlights the need for tailored policy responses that consider industry-specific factors and offers practical implications for enhancing the effectiveness of disclosure documents, improving franchise contract structures, and standardizing fair operational guidelines.